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“Social Media Sucks”

Dan Close started his session off with these words: “Stick to real journalism. Social media sucks.”

Bold statement, Dan. Bold statement.

He really meant to make the point that “real journalism” is not using Facebook, Twitter and email as a means to get interviews. He went on to compare “real journalism” to “fake journalism”:

Real Journalism

observation

research

critical thinking

verification

writing

editing

interviewing

Fake Journalism

rumor

Twitter/Facebook

less context

no time to reflect

unreliable sources

harder to verify

shapeless

Close used the comparison of real journalism to fake journalism as a means to explain the overall theme of his presentation: multi-sourcing your stories. I think that this is something that I personally need to improve on. And after reading The Pendulum over the last few weeks, I feel that it’s something that we could all improve on.